Rotary Club of Oak Bay Meeting 24 January 2017 - Dr. Elizabeth Vibert: Victoria’s Colonial Legacies Field School in South Africa

Reporter: Sandy Currie

Paul Harris Pins:

The business part of the meeting opened with Joan Firkins presenting Jenny and Pete with Paul Harris pins. For Jenny, this was her  first pin. Pete received his pin for his exceptional service over the years. His pin is a Paul Harris pin+7.

RYLA recipients:

Jim Force then introduced Tara Mathews and Annika Weir who are students at Oak Bay High. Tara and Annika are co-winners of the Interact RYLA prize. Accordingly, they will be traveling together on an exchange to Mexico. While there, they hope to create artwork and discover ways to implement Rotary’s Four Way Test.   

Before leaving they will attend a session at Camp Pringle where they will meet other BC Rotary exchange students. While there, they will be instructed in Goal Setting (Terri Mack), Self-Empowerment (Christine deSouza), and Social Styles Awareness (Joan Ryan). This last learning component will provide the students with the tools needed to become aware of their own personality styles and how to use them effectively. 

Guest Speaker:

Our speaker was Dr. Elizabeth Vibert who teaches history at UVic and is an historian with a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University. Her main research interests are colonialism, food security and poverty. In1992, Elizabeth founded Victoria’s Colonial Legacies Field School in South Africa, through which she directs advocacy work for small-scale farmers. This was a year of a particularly severe drought in the area. 

This farm is called the Hieketani Community garden, and it is located in a small village called Jopi. This initiative, called the Community Vegetable Project, was started by a group of eighty two women who were market farmers. At this time there was a severe drought and widespread hunger across Southern Africa.

The three goals for this project are:

1. Building community
2. Providing ever-improving health services
3. Supporting and encouraging women’s autonomy and inter-generational relations

Over the years, these people have faced many set-backs and have persevered to ensure the continuation of this project. One example is when vandals destroyed the irrigation system, in 2014, by ransacking the metal piping. The women then managed to re-build it. It took two years but by 2016, they were irrigating their crops again. In addition, they had a new bore-hole well to provide a more reliable source of irrigation water. This was followed by construction of another storage tank for the water.

Currently they have their own nursery, and supply sustainably produced, nutritious vegetables to farmers’ households and community members. This very successful project also provides the local population with jobs such as farming, vegetable sales, and manure sales. 

Cory thanked Elizabeth on behalf of the club, and presented her with one of our cherished Rotary Mugs.